Learning to Drive Stick

I finally began taking driving lessons in January, with the assurance by my instructor that it should only take a few weeks of daily lessons and then I should be prepared to take both the written and road tests. It looks like David has lucked out and should get an exemption from both tests. Along with learning the rules of the road, I would need to learn to drive stick.

As with other things about living in Germany, at first glance, things seem very similar. They have stoplights like ours, you'd recognize stop, yield and figure out the speed limit signs. But once you scratch below the surface, you'd realize that most things are different. For instance, would you know the meanings of these common traffic signs the first time you saw them?




The yellow diamond means you are on a priority road (you get right of way) and the road curves to the left. You must use your indicator if you're following the priority road.








End of speed restrictions. Be prepared for people to put the pedal to the metal.









Give precedence to oncoming traffic










No stopping (no parking either)







My very first driving lessons consisted of me wanting to hit my instructor upside the head. Learning stick came first and instead of taking me to a parking lot or quiet street, he took me to a commercial area loaded with traffic, parked cars lining both sides of the street, where 2 cars had trouble passing each other. I was very uncomfortable to say the least, but figured millions of people all over the world drive stick. Surely I can learn, too.

But we were only doing 1 lesson a week, not enough to become truly comfortable. Constantly running through my mind was the thought that if I didn't shift properly, I could be putting my 4 children in harm's way. By lesson 4, I was still not feeling very confident and I found myself constantly glancing down at the gear shift every time I needed to shift to be sure I put it into the right gear. And don't even get me started on down shifting. There were so many rules about when you down shift and into which gear, I just couldn't keep it straight. Then, during lesson 4, my instructor threw me a curve.

One huge difference in Germany, actually through most of Europe and possibly other places in the world, is the right-before-left priority rule. That means that unless otherwise indicated, a person coming from the right has priority. You can be driving down the main road in a town and someone coming from a side street to your right has priority. They won't even slow down to see if you will stop for them. They will just dart out in front of you and you had better stop. A few months ago this happened to us in the IKEA parking lot (I didn't know about right-before-left then) where we were driving down the main lane and some idiot darted out right in front of us. Didn't even hesitate. What a jerk!! Turns out, of course, that he had right of way.

So, learning to look for drivers and bike riders coming from the right was one thing. Thank goodness the right-before-left rule usually applies in areas with low speed limits. My instructor, however, wanted me to learn to be the person coming from the right, who barely glances over her shoulder before darting out in front of a car approaching from the left, assuming that other driver will stop. Oh, and all the while doing the necessary shifting. It did not go well. I could not get my American head wrapped around the idea of pulling out in front of someone who hasn't even begun to slow down and then I'd forget to shift and, well, it was just a mess. My instructor insisting, "Go! Go! Don't stop! Why did you stop?!" wasn't helping. Halfway through the lesson, I was in tears and knew that if I was going to get my driver's license soon, it was going to have to be on an automatic.

In Germany, if you take your driver's test on a stick, you can then drive either stick or automatic cars. If you take the test in an automatic car, you are only allowed to drive automatics. The big problem was that I would not be able to drive our minivan. I have been driving tiny subcompact automatic rental cars since our arrival. David would need to drive the big, not-particularly impressive minivan and I would need to get a new automatic. But David understood and even my driving instructor encouraged the switch to automatic. He could tell how uncomfortable I was and he admitted that I made him nervous.

Time was ticking away. I needed to get my license soon (you only have 6 months to get one) and my instructor was having a hard time getting a hold of an automatic car. Two weeks later, he suggested I switch to a different driving school that always had an automatic on hand and so I was dumped by my first instructor.

My new instructor was very excited to teach a student in English for the first time and was very patient with me. Just being in an automatic made such a difference. With 2 or 3 lessons a week, I am now close to taking the driving tests.

So, the excessive length of this post was to try to justify myself on not learning stick to all those nice people who said, "Stick is easy! You won't have a problem!" Thanks for the encouragement, but it just didn't work out.